


Never leaves Me

by basicallymonsters



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basicallymonsters/pseuds/basicallymonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan gets a call that Phil’s been involved in a car accident and spirals into crisis - speeding to the hospital and trying not to suspect the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pieces of Phil

He ignores the first phone call, barely glancing from his controller to see a distorted close up of Phil’s face flash onto his lock screen.

Phil Lester Calling…

“Great timing, loser,” he mutters, grunting a little as he rounds a tight corner towards the mario kart finish line. He frowns as the phone continues to ring, but his face melts easily into a pleased grin when he speeds past the finish line into first place.

He scoops up his phone from where it’s balanced in the crease of the couch, and he startles when it buzzes in his hand. Flushed cheeks and crossed eyes fill up the screen again in Phil’s second call in a minute and Dan feels himself succumbing to concern. He thumbs the accept button.

“Ringing me at the office in the middle of my busy work day, how unprofessional” Dan jokes, tapping anxiously at the table top.

“Is this Daniel Howell?” An unfamiliar female voice questions and he sits up straight.

“Yes, who’s this? Why have you got Phil’s phone?” He asks, and he’s halfway standing without really knowing why.

“I’m afraid Philip was in an accident, auto versus pedestrian earlier today, and we’re overseeing his care here-”

Dan’s head feels fuzzy, each word a cotton ball jammed into his ears, sentences becoming less and less distinct. The TV monitor’s still on but it feels too far away to be real.

His lungs feel like paper bags punched through, and he holds a hand to his chest instinctively.

“I’m sorry - I’m sorry, what? Phil was-” he starts, feeling stupid and numb.

“In an accident, sir, please stay calm, he’s being looked after right now, he’s in extremely capable hands” she assures him in even, soothing tones. Dan’s swallowing too many times over the persistent lump in his throat, and soothing isn’t even touching him.

“How do you have his phone he would-he’d call me, wouldn't… Phil’s almost as weird about his phone as I am, he wouldn’t- are you not letting him make calls?”

“He’s-” she hesitates, and Dan can hear her breath hitch, her next sentence capped off last second. Dan can feel his leg muscles flutter like they’re going to give out.

“What, what is he?” Dan prompts, feeling desperation like honey clogging his throat, clinging and thick.

“He was in no state to call, I’m afraid. Don’t be alarmed please, I’d just like to know your relation to the patient as emergency contact, and if anyone can be down here to sign some paperwork and see him through his surgery, I-”

Dan lets out a high, manic laugh.

“Surgery? Patient? This is…” he trails off, choking on his own fractured laughter and noting for the first time that his face is wet with tears.

The woman hesitates again. He’s struck by the disconnect between them. She sounds young and so, so far away.

“Will you be able to make it to hospital, or…?” she sounds much less rehearsed now.

“Of course, yeah, yes. I’m his flat mate and. Friend. Close friend,” he stutters over the half truth but can’t summon the usual pang of regret.

They exchange information and directions to the hospital and Dan tries not to shatter, wondering why Phil was so far from their flat and what he was doing, why he wasn’t looking. Sobs creep up his throat and threaten to spill out. He can feel that he’s moments away from letting them.

“Is he okay, is he awake?” Dan asks, trying (and failing) for polite composure.

“He’s unconscious. We had to medicate him - he was having trouble breathing due to his broken ribs. We didn’t want to risk puncturing a lung if he started to hyperventilate.”

His facade slips, breath coming out in choppy gasps.

“Right, of course. I-I’m coming, don’t take him into surgery until I get there, please” he gets out, and hangs up.

His phone slips through stiff fingers, bouncing off the couch and onto the carpet.

Dan fists both hands in his hair, gives himself a minute to shake. His heart jumps painfully at the idea of happily playing video games 10 minutes ago. 

Panic spikes through him after another moment of stillness, pulsing hot and forcing him into action. His eyes catch on pieces of Phil dotting the space around him, their life together suddenly a horrific taunt that he might lose it.

What would he even do if Phil died? He physically shakes his head, refusing to consider something so frighteningly plausible and refusing to be pulled under the black tide of dread those kinds of thoughts usually bring.

He can’t even fathom how much he would lose.

His professional and personal lives would be demolished in one fell swoop and the response from the world would be exactly as overwhelming as he didn’t need when he was inevitably devastated.

His mind spirals down dark hallways of thought, crying over Phil’s broken body, holding himself back from cradling his head lest someone be watching. (regretting that decision for every late night after). Watching his perfect stupid lopsided smile fade to nothing. Having to walk out of the hospital and into a life as one half of a duo. Calling Phil’s mum. Falling into a depression, follower count dropping to zero when the world lost interest, having to sell his flat because he couldn’t look at house plants without losing his breath.

Dan shakes his hands out like he can feel a Phil-less reality reeling him in, clammy hands taking his.

He grabs his keys and wipes angrily at his eyes, taking the stairs down to the front door and trying not to slam it behind him.

He can’t usually focus on a good day, but now he’s pocketing and un-pocketing his phone, increasingly horrible scenarios brushing the sides of his consciousness. Waiting for a cab to come and make him feel less still and susceptible to paranoia.

Dan’s eyes skim the oppressive greyness of the horizon and he counts in his head, half trying to calm himself down, half timing the taxi service with increasing worry.

When the driver pulls up beside him, Dan’s a frazzled mess of gangly limbs, short, frustrated sentences and red rimmed eyes.

The trip is impossibly slow, and Dan keeps missing the drivers questions, too busy watching street signs whizz by, waiting for a hospital exit.

He drops a few notes into the passenger seat when they came to a stop, patting awkwardly at the window in some semblance of a thank you. It’s a mad rush after that, adrenaline carrying him through something like exercise, darting through automatic doors and long, narrow corridors, the smell of antiseptic and plastic making him feel dizzy.

Dan can’t recall an instance where he understood tunnel vision so completely, his limbs organizing themselves in some miracle around bustling patients and wheeling carts, eyes fixed on the help desk.

“I got a call about Phil Lester, I was told to come here? I don’t know if he’s okay, I need to see him as soon as possible please” he says, all in a rush.

A stocky man with tired eyes glances up at him from a lap full of scribbles and post it notes.

“Sorry? Oh, patient name?” He asks, sitting up straighter and sliding on glasses along with a modicum of professionalism.

“Phil Lester” Dan says impatiently, drumming his fingers on the countertop.

“Right, sorry uhh, he’s upstairs in prep, can I-”

“What floor?” Dan interrupts.

“Three. Elevators to the left.”

And then he’s back in motion, up shaky looking elevators and down yet more hallways, coming to another desk with a fragile looking woman behind it.

“Phil Lester. Please.” Dan says shortly.

The woman looks startled, dropping one side of the folder she’s browsing so it flops shut. 

“Oh. You’re Mr Howell! I’m glad you could make it so quickly,” she enthuses, but the sentiment falls short.

He nods, expectant.

“And… where is Phil?” He asks, voice suddenly small.

“They wheeled him up to surgery, we got in touch with his family for consent. I didn’t realize you were just roommates, I’m afraid you can’t see him until he’s out.”

Dan’s heart sinks. He still doesn’t correct her.

“I just wanted to see him. He shouldn’t have been alone.” He never leaves me alone, he didn’t say.

The woman looks vaguely apologetic.

“If you want to come back in a couple of hours…?” She trails off as Dan shakes his head.

“No, I need to stay.”

She gives him the strangest bittersweet smile, and gestures towards sickly green plastic chairs, spaced too closely together.

He mutters, “thanks” and walks over, easing down and letting his body curl into itself a little, stress showing in every line of his body.

There’s a weird tension between him and the woman at the desk, distance too short to be as silent as it is. He’s starting to get shooting pains up his back from being so tense and the thought only winds him up further, a rope taut to breaking.

He doesn’t want to cry in this shitty waiting area but he thinks maybe Phil would make just the right jokes and knead his shoulders and make this bearable. He exhales through his nose, wills himself not to scroll through their text conversations and peruse his photo roll (70% Phil) just to make himself feel.

He waits, and the sun may or may not be going down, but the light and temperature stay cold and modulated - just like he hasn’t been today. He thinks maybe he’d rather be anywhere else. But Phil’s on this floor somewhere. So maybe not.


	2. Just Dan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan reunites with a scraped up Phil at the hospital. Tearful heartfelt waffling and sweet (careful) embracing follows.

It was 3 hours and 22 minutes before anyone came for him.

Strangers came and went in various states of dishevelment - patients hobbling past and family trickling into the seating around him, looking too likely to talk for Dan’s comfort.

He watches clusters of important looking people in stained pastel scrubs run back and forth, and he keeps trying to play the games on his phone before realizing his distractible brain isn’t having it. He's still buffering somewhere around “Philip was in an accident”.

If he was tense before - he's going to need physical therapy for the strain in his shoulders now. He keeps trying to lean as far away as he can from the broad man in the seat next to him, and further from the sympathy in everyone’s faces, proving over and over that Dan’s face is too readable for his own good.

Every once in a while he feels unbearably claustrophobic and his throat tries to close up on him. He pictures Phil’s laughing face.

_“Just try to count, it works for me.”_

_“How high? I can't think of a number that's going to be big enough to trick my brain into behaving, Phil.”_

_“Just count until your breathing catches on. You’re brain’s not as smart as you think it is.”_

_“Maybe_ your _brain isn’t as smart as you think it is.”_

_“At least my brain has a college degree.”_

_“Oh my god.”_

Dan rolls his neck out and tries not to cry out in frustration when yet another tearful family member is escorted behind the veil of curtains to recovery.

The lady behind the desk has traded out with someone else, presumably finished with her shift, and Dan feels inexplicably like he just lost his safety net. (His usual safety net is in for repairs)

He closes his eyes and counts again.

His usual calming method just provokes tears behind closed lids though, and he’s  _so_  mad. Mad that so many parts of him are inherited from Phil, that he’s pieced together a misshapen costume of shared qualities as much as specifically his own - formed by memories together and Phil’s sunshiny encouragement. Mad that he’s honestly, disgustingly, one half of a whole.

He blinks the moisture and bright fluorescent lighting out of his eyes just as a shadow looms into his vision.

“Dan, right?” someone asks, voice deep and comforting.

He’s never been more glad to hear his name. (Except maybe a few choice times it was moaned into his neck but that’s a very different story)

“Yeah, that’s me.” He peers up at a kind looking man with dark skin and deep laugh lines. He’s decked out in green scrubs and Dan can feel his heart start pounding again, anticipating news.

“Is Phil ok?” he asks, and the man nods seriously.

“He’s out of surgery, and it all went very smoothly. Everyone’s just going to have to be a bit gentle with him for a while.”

 _I’m always gentle with him_ **,**  Dan thinks.

“Can I go in and see him?”

“Visiting hours are coming up on done, I'm afraid,”

“Seriously? I’m sorry, but I can’t just go back to our flat without him, I’m not going to leave him here without making sure he’s okay, at least, I can make him okay-” he insists and the man presses down on his shoulders a little, knocking him into the realization that he was rising out of his seat, his voice raising.

“Hey, visiting hours are officially done, but rules are bendable. I was going to say that you could stop in for a bit - we’re not monsters, you know.” He flashes a nervous smile.

Dan’s too exhausted to be embarrassed, instead he just nods dumbly, deflating back into his chair.

“Right. Well can we… go see him now?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Dan shoves himself upright and struggles not to slip on his locked up limbs, falling in step beside the doctor. He tries not to look too smug at the nervous waiting room goers he leaves in his wake.

He almost surpasses the doctor at his side, having seen so many families round the same corner over the last 3 hours, wishing with every one that he were a bit more like them. That he presented like he was Phil’s family and not like a gangly guy with earrings and skinny jeans. But maybe then they wouldn’t be Dan and Phil.

He can sense the guy’s eyes on him for a couple of beats, and then he says, almost apologetically-

“I don’t know if this is weird but… my, uh, daughter watches you guys.”

Dan glances at him, barely distracted.

“Oh yeah? Is that why you called me-”

“Dan - yeah, The patient’s name and then yours, I had a hunch. And I recognized you from some… London day video? Yeah. Em loves you. She’s gonna hate me!” He chuckles.

Dan’s smile is strained. He tries not to obviously spoil the mood but he’s more concerned with his glaringly obvious vulnerability and the ways it could easily filter back through one well-meaning dad.

“Sorry I can't…” he starts.

“Oh no, I don’t expect anything from you, you and your boyfriend can have some recovery time. Don’t worry.” The man smiles and comes to a stop in front of sliding glass doors in front of draping grey curtains.

Dan feels the usual pang from the word boyfriend, part surprise and part guilty thrill.

And then his companion is silently drawing the curtain back, and there’s no hesitation, no beat of fear,  just two magnets drawn back together as Dan ducks into the dimly lit room, eyes pulling to Phil immediately.

He feels his face fall, his eyes sting, before he can catch up to his own emotions.

All the build up for the last 4 hours is rushing in his ears in a crescendo of panic. He starts to breathe hard and fast and he thinks, against his better judgement, that there’s no way they’ve fixed him. He’s so, so pale, chest wrapped and blood seeping through the gauze, so dark and thick that it makes Phil look even sicker in contrast.

His eyes are closed, bruises blossoming across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, his hair pushed back from his face. Dan doesn’t know what he expected. Maybe more tubes, more activity. Maybe less, maybe Phil to be faking, exaggerating. Begging for attention in that cheeky sidelong glances and well timed requests sort of way - like when he’s sick and only gets forehead kisses and soup from Dan for a week straight.

But Phil looks broken, and Dan feels small. Helpless, fluttering on the outskirts of his bed and not knowing where to touch him.

He settles on the top of his head, thumbing along his eyebrow and smoothing his hair. He inhales shakily and feels Phil stir under his hands, face turning into his open palms before flinching.

“Ooh, ow, why do I- why do I feel like I can’t- breathe.” He gets out choppily, like he’s relearning how.

“You fucking can’t, you idiot. You broke yourself into tiny pieces and stressed me the fuck out all day and I was preparing your funeral in my head, Phil, I was writing your epitaph, and then the script for my last ever video-”

“Dan-”

“You almost getting killed almost killed me, I’m going to need a week of massage therapy for the stress in my entire body.” but he’s still stroking over Phil’s face, and he leans down to press warm, lingering kisses into his eyelids and over his swollen cheeks.

“You always do that shoulder thing when- when you’re stressed.” Phil says, struggling through it.

Dan nods furiously, cupping his face.

“Uh huh, that massage bill is yours. And so is my aromatherapy after the hospital death smells I endured, not to mention fixing the fall out on tumblr - I got recognized and that sure as hell isn’t going to be ignored that I was crying in a hospital for you, and-” he stops short, angry with Phil and angry that he still wants to tell him everything that happened in the last few hours. He feels like he hasn’t completely worked through something until they’ve both talked it out.

Phil smiles at him warmly and the anger deflates into nothing.

“Sorry.”

“I should hope so, you ruined my Mario Kart winning streak.”

Phil lets out an amused huff without jostling any of his injuries too much, and it’s a little unnerving to not see him laughing properly at one of Dan’s dumb jokes.

“What were you even doing, were you doing the thing where you text while crossing the street, because if you listened to me ever-”

“That’s your shtick, I would never.” Phil jokes, moving his hand to graze his chest absentmindedly.

When Dan doesn’t speak, Phil glances up at him, frowning.

“I was trying to help this, uh, dog, honestly” he says sheepishly.

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

“No, Dan wait-”

“You don’t think maybe you’re taking your animal lover thing too far, you don’t think maybe your health - or at least my mental wellbeing - is more important than a canine’s?”

“It didn’t know what was happening, and there was a truck, and I thought I was faster, but I guess we need to get out the running shoes again.”

Dan gapes at him. “Yeah, as physical therapy for your dumb, dog-loving body! I can’t believe you did that.”

“I’m sorry, I made a stupid call, but it's not like it was self sacrifice. I was disoriented by the dog’s squirming and the truck driver was a bit of a bastard. He drove off afterwards, apparently.”

Dan’s face goes stony, hand flexing from where it’s holding Phil’s.

“Are you serious, it was a hit and run? He left you, he left my-”

“Dan.” Phil says in a warning tone, one hand lowering Dan’s gesticulating ones.

“I’m sorry Phil, but that’s unacceptable, and you’re clearly too absurdly well meaning to do anything about it.”

Phil looks at him knowingly and Dan hates it.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m trying to keep you safe from dicks with trucks, and now _dogs_ apparently.”

“You don’t have to keep me safe you big loser, I’m whole, and fine and everything.”

Dan falls silent.

“Dan.”

“You could’ve left me alone!” Dan explodes, physically pulling away from Phil even as he properly opens up.

“You could’ve been gone, and I would’ve been just- Dan. I can’t do any of this shit without you, I don’t have a brand or a job or a channel without you. And I don’t have anything to do them for. I can’t be just Dan anymore, you keep me trying, do you understand? I love you in a gross co-dependent way that doesn’t let me breathe properly, it’s like you yanked out one of my lungs with my heart, like you did a hack job. Just like you would, wouldn’t you, you’re Phil.”

He palms his watery eyes and continues, “I can’t have you running off into a dog populated heaven and leaving me, I wouldn’t make it a month.”

Phil’s face falls.

“Dan.”

“Look, don’t feed me platitudes, alright, I’m not asking for promises you can’t keep, about staying with me or whatever, I just had to say some stuff because my best friend ditched out on me today and I needed this.”

Phil smiles at him so gently that Dan could scream.

“Come here.”

Dan eyes his single hospital bed, crossed over with vine like tubing.

“No, you’re all broken.”

Phil rolls his eyes.

“Pull up a chair, then.”

“That’s more practical, I’m into it.”

He drags a chair from one of the dingy corners of the room, scraping it around to sit directly to the right of Phil’s head.

“Hi” he says when he’s seated, wedging his chin up onto the mattress and looking at Phil like he’s been parched for him.

“Hey” Phil replies, guiding Dan’s head down to lay by his side. He strokes over messy half-curling locks, and feels tears burn down his own scraped face.

“I, personally, think just Dan is amazing.”

Dan clenches a hand in his hospital gown.

"Dan and Phil is better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I sincerely appreciate kudos and comments!


End file.
